KINGDOM OF TENGGER

KINGDOM of TENGGER

a 15th-century Majapahit successor state

Tĕnggĕr, Indonesia : suku Tengger people are a Javanese ethnic group in eastern Java who claim to be the descendants of the Majapahit princes. Their population of roughly 100,000 is centered in 30 villages in the isolated Tengger mountains (Mount Bromo) in the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in Eastern Java.

They are traditionally believed to be the descendants of legendary Roro Anteng and Joko Seger. The Tenggerese are considered an ethnic sub-group of the Javanese People.

The area in and around the park is inhabited by the Tengger people, one of the few significant Hindu communities remaining on the island of Java. Their population of roughly 600,000 is centered in thirty villages in the isolated Tengger mountains including Mount Bromo and areas within the park. The local religion is a remnant from the Majapahit era and therefore quite similar to that on Bali but with even more animist elements. The Tengger people are believed to be descendents of the Majapahit empire and were driven into the hills after mass arrival in the area of Muslim Madurese in the 19th century.

The main point is that I really appreciate the concepts of black and white photos in this mountainous area with its iconic tengger tribe. Creating photo art with surrealism and fine art combined with nature and the power of light are the main points of my photo here.

When you create a black and white photograph,

you create something that is abstract and strikingly real at the same time.

Black and white photography is strange that way.

It is perhaps this abstractness that makes black and white images so intriguing

and timeless.

- Ritesh Saini

“Color is everything, black and white is more.”

– Dominic Rouse

“Black and white is abstract; color is not. Looking at a black and white photograph, you are already looking at a strange world.”

– Joel Sternfeld

“I work in color sometimes, but I guess the images I most connect to, historically speaking, are in black and white.

I see more in black and white – I like the abstraction of it.”

– Mary Ellen Mark

“I think it’s because it was an emotional story, and emotions come through much stronger in black and white. Color is distracting in a way, it pleases the eye but it doesn’t necessarily reach the heart.”

– Kim Hunter

“There’s something strange and powerful about black-and-white imagery.”

– Stefan Kanfer

“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!”
― Ted Grant